


without chains (you keep me)

by madasaboxofcats



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Humor, Shoot Week 2015, post-Samaritan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:35:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4571751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madasaboxofcats/pseuds/madasaboxofcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s going to kill Reese. </p><p>Well, maybe not kill him because he can occasionally be useful on missions and he’s decent at this undercover crap, but she’s at least going to kneecap him. He’s enjoying this way too much. It’s work and work isn’t meant to be enjoyed unless food is being consumed or somebody on the other side is getting shot. </p><p>There are probably other enjoyable work situations – car chases, bank robberies, drinking fruity cocktails after beating up a bunch of bad guys in a bar in Miami – but this just shouldn’t be one of them.</p><p>Root is touching his goddamn hand and he really should not be enjoying this at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	without chains (you keep me)

**Author's Note:**

> Shoot Week prompt: Why does Root of all people have to slip John information while he's posing as a prisoner? A conjugal visit? Really Harold really? (No she's totally not jealous, especially when she hears all the hoots and hollers at her girlfriend. Super not jealous when John play flirts with her. Nope. Shaw is so not going to shoot him in the knees when he comes out).

“Rage Against the Machine, Sameen? Really?”

Root. Fan-fucking-tastic. 

Shaw’s eyes narrow and she takes a step away from the black punching bag hanging from the ceiling. She made Reese install it for her a while back, the first time she was held here against her will. If she’s not allowed to shoot anybody, she should at least be allowed to hit things. 

Harold steps out of the train car, pulling a bright pink earplug from one ear. 

He’s such a drama queen.

“Ms. Shaw has been protesting our latest assignment. Loudly.” 

The beat to “Know Your Enemy” thumps in the background. It’s not that loud. 

“Finch,” she glares at him and hits the punching bag for emphasis, “benched me. Again.”

Root shakes the snow off of her hat and struts over to Shaw, stilling the bag in front of her and looking amused. 

“Need I remind you that the last time you went undercover as a suburban housewife, Ms. Shaw, you ended up holding several women hostage?” 

She shrugs. 

“They could have left.”

“You had your firearm pointed at them.”

“Whatever. Still could’ve left.”

It’s not like she would have shot them. Probably. 

“Be that as it may, this particular assignment is more in Ms. Groves’ wheelhouse.” 

Shaw tries not to look at Root, who she is sure is grinning that stupid grin that happens when someone is nice to her. Nobody should smile that much. It’s probably unhealthy. 

“I still don’t see why she can’t just be his lawyer,” she mumbles before hitting the bag again. 

It swings with the force, almost knocking Root in the face as it rebounds. So maybe it was a little harder of a punch than absolutely necessary, but she doesn’t really care. Serves her right for standing so irritatingly close.   

“Jealous, Sameen?” 

Root leans in closer, right up in her personal space and Shaw can practically feel the leer crawling up her neck. She rolls her eyes. 

“More like feeling sorry for Reese. He’s already in prison. Don’t see why we need to punish him any more than that.”

Harold turns off the music. 

“If you want a conjugal visit, too, Sam,” Root’s breath is hot in her ear, “all you need to do is ask.”  

Harold shifts his weight awkwardly, like he doesn’t know what to do with Root’s obnoxious flirting either.

“Ms. Groves, if you would?” He motions to the subway car and Root follows him, throwing one last grin her way before ducking into the car to do whatever it is she actually came here to do.

Shaw throws another punch. 

The bag swings and swings and swings.

\---

Going out in a blaze of glory but then not actually dying is really fucking annoying.

It’s not that Shaw wishes she were dead – no, being alive is pretty great for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the dog currently lying with his head in her lap – but being dead-then-alive has its complications. Like being stuck on desk duty.

And fine, she’s technically still recovering from three bullet wounds and three months of physical and psychological torture, but she can still shoot a gun a hell of a lot better than Fusco, who seems to have picked up some of the slack while she was gone. 

She’s been back for three weeks and has been out on one mission. One. And calling it a mission is generous, because really all it involved was a six-hour stakeout with Root yammering non-stop, like she’s allergic to silence or something. Shaw is not allergic to silence. Shaw _likes_ silence. Especially at 3 o’clock in the morning when she’s got her eyes on a mark, waiting for him to do something shady so she can bust his ass. 

Root did the ass-busting on that “mission.” Shaw waited in the car. 

She still doesn’t know why she went along with that.

Except she does know. She went along with it because Root looked at her with these sad, watery eyes, like someone had killed her puppy, and said, very quietly, “I just don’t want you to get hurt again, Sameen.” No flirting. No innuendo. Shaw harrumphed and threw herself back into the passenger seat and did her best to look put out by Root and her stupid, inconvenient caring. 

It was probably the first time she’s ever put somebody’s _feelings_ above her own desire to shoot things, and she still kind of regrets it. But only kind of because when Root got back in the car, she smiled and said “Thank you,” and looked a little less tired than she had since before Shaw got back. She figured it was probably okay to let her have this one. 

(But she made Root swear not to tell anyone that she sat in the car like a pussy. As far as Reese and Finch are concerned, she was the one who kneecapped him – Root just helped her shove him into the trunk afterwards.) 

So she’s had one skim-milk mission where didn’t actually do anything, and now she’s sitting here in the batcave and she’s about ready to jump out of her skin. 

She pats Bear’s head and looks around the subway station. Her old apartment is probably gone by now – her landlord isn’t the type to buy the old “I was shot and then abducted by a bunch of psychopaths who work for an artificial super intelligence trying to take over the world” excuse, and she’s sure that if she were to return, the apartment would be leased out to someone else. 

She hopes somebody thought to get her guns. They at least brought some of her stuff here – she thinks Reese must have packed the suitcase because in addition to all of the normal stuff, there is a handful of seven or eight eyeliners that she got deeply discounted from Macy’s, and Root would have known that a girl doesn’t need seven eyeliners at once. She’s pretty sure that Root also would have dug through her underwear drawer to find her sexy stuff, and the underwear supply they’ve given her here is thoroughly practical – bikini cut briefs and boyshorts – instead of the lacy crap she keeps in the back of the drawer. So yeah, Reese.

It’s not like the subway station is horrible. She’s lived worse places. It’s just there’s the constant taunt of everyone else doing productive things while she sits around and “heals.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean. (She’s the doctor, shouldn’t she be the one making the calls about when she’s fit for duty?)

The kid-gloves treatment had better not last too much longer. She wasn’t built for rotting away in a hidey-hole so that other people don’t worry about the very small risk that someone might actually get one up on her at some point. Shaw can’t remember the last time she was (voluntarily) this still for this long. 

And she gets that they had some trauma when they thought she died. She gets it. Kind of. She has gathered that not everybody has adopted her attitude of “it was a pretty badass way to go.” 

(Even though it totally was. Come on. Totally badass action hero move. Kiss the girl, save the team, shoot some bad guys, get hit and fall down to the floor in some kind of super awesome stylized slow motion shit. Badass.)

Nobody has said much about what happened when she was gone. Fusco hugged her when he saw her (which was weird and unnecessary and she really doesn’t know how to properly respond to hugs because she’s pretty sure violent shoving isn’t acceptable). Finch was Finch-like. Reese said something like “It was bad, Shaw,” nodding his head towards Root who was, at the time, engrossed in some computer thing with Finch. Root hadn’t really said anything about it all, but sometimes she looks at Shaw like she can’t believe she’s there, like she’s a ghost or something.

It’s unnerving.

So they had trauma because she got shot and they thought she was dead and she gets that, she really does. But she isn’t actually dead. She’s alive and mostly healthy-ish and _bored_. So when Finch benches her and claims it’s because Root is better at undercover flirting, it kind of grates.

(Even though she is.) 

If she had actually died, she wouldn’t have to deal with that shit.

The other thing she wouldn’t have to deal with? Root. Fucking _Root_ and that stupid, bad idea of a kiss. 

Root hasn’t brought it up yet, but she will. She’s upped her flirt-o-meter like a thousand percent and it’s getting practically obscene and it’s only a matter of time before she starts in with “Hey Sameen, remember that time you kissed me?” or whatever she’s going to pull. 

There is no way that Root is going to let this one go, this perfect opportunity for her to actually get something over on Shaw. She’s like a dog with a damn bone about normal stuff – she’s going to be ruthless when she finally gets around to goading her with her somewhat rash actions at the Stock Exchange. 

Every time she and Root are in the same room, she braces herself for it. 

It’s coming. She knows it’s coming. The innuendo and the comments and maybe a repeat attempt that Shaw thinks she’d probably push away, but then again she might not because what the hell, you only live once and Root is probably fucking incredible in bed. 

But that’s not a conversation she wants to have right now. Or ever. That’s a thing she can keep to herself. 

But she won’t be able to because fucking _Root_ is going to bring it up. One day. It’s coming, along with some kind of talk about _feelings_ that Shaw is just not cut out for and she’d really rather avoid the whole thing altogether. 

Going out in a blaze of glory? Definitely not what she thought it would be. 

\--- 

She’s going to kill Reese. 

Well, maybe not kill him because he can occasionally be useful on missions and he’s decent at this undercover crap, but she’s at least going to kneecap him. He’s enjoying this way too much. It’s work and work isn’t meant to be enjoyed unless food is being consumed or somebody on the other side is getting shot. 

There are probably other enjoyable work situations – car chases, bank robberies, drinking fruity cocktails after beating up a bunch of bad guys in a bar in Miami – but this just shouldn’t be one of them.

Root is touching his goddamn hand and he really should not be enjoying this at all.

Shaw glares at the monitor.

The prison’s visitation room is full of half a dozen other guys and their visitors – women, kids, tatted up dudes – and their number is sitting across the table from a woman wearing more eye shadow than Shaw thinks she’s ever seen on a single person in her life. And she saw just about every flavor of desperate housewife when she was working the makeup counter. 

Finch isn’t sure if he’s a victim or a perp (she thinks he’s a perp, but she thinks most people are probably guilty of something that could get them killed), but Reese has been gathering intel and something is going down in the trailer used for “family visits” on Friday. The trailer without cameras. 

Shaw thinks it’s an abysmally bad idea to let convicted felons have a whole room by themselves with no monitoring, but nobody consulted her. 

It’s probably a drug deal, from what John has told Fusco, who made a couple of unnecessary visits to “interview inmates on a pending case” last week. The number needs to meet with some guy called Pinky to figure out the finer points of large-scale drug trafficking, and so he arranged some time in the trailer with his wife, who Shaw assumes is Mrs. Eyeshadow over there. John didn’t know what, exactly, this guy was trying to move, but whatever it is, it’s big enough for someone to get a bullet in the head instead of a cut of the profits. 

So Root is prancing around the prison with a goddamn wedding ring on her hand, trying to convince the warden that she and Reese really need some alone time this week before she flies off to Tulsa or something to take care of her ailing mother. As much as Shaw doesn’t want to admit it, it’s a solid plan. They’ll play lovebirds for a minute, get their booty call application approved, and then go in and plant bugs and cameras and mics in the trailer before the number’s shit hits the fan. 

It’s a good plan. But Root is going a little overboard (seriously, does there need to be so much hand touching?) and John looks like a smug little shit who knows that she’s watching and listening and getting annoyed.

Annoyed because work is serious and they’re not taking it seriously.

Not annoyed because she’s jealous or something stupid like that.

Shaw doesn’t get jealous. And she especially doesn’t get jealous because of fucking _Root_.

The warden ambles in, 300 pounds of belly fat and bitterness, and raises his voice to the room. “Visiting hour is over.” He turns to look at John and Root. “Mrs. Locklear, with me, please. Your application has been approved, I just need you to fill out some paperwork in my office.” 

Root nods, then looks at Reese and winks. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetie.” 

It’s not even a real wink. It’s that kind of half-wink thing Root does when she scrunches up one side of her face, closes an eye, and then looks all self-satisfied, like she’s accomplished some major feat. Shaw’s been on the receiving end of Root’s non-wink more times than she can count, and at this point, it draws an almost-Pavlovian eyeroll out of her. 

Metal chairs groan against the concrete floors as the inmates and their visitors stand and say their goodbyes.

Shaw lets her feet drop from on top of Finch’s desk. Her side only twinges a little bit, and she figures it’s progress. Maybe Finch will loosen the reigns and let her out to interrogate the wife, see what she knows about this Pinky dude. 

She looks back at the monitor just as Root grabs Reese by his stupid beige jumpsuit and pulls him toward her. They’re kissing – slow and languid and totally unnecessary. Shaw really doesn’t need to see this, but she can’t make herself look away. 

When they part, John looks up at the camera in the corner of the room and smirks.

She’s going to kill him.

“It’s just for show, Sameen,” a voice chirps in her ear a few minutes later. 

She’s going to kill Root, too.

\---

Shaw nearly chokes on her soda.

“ _That_ is what you’re wearing?” 

Root’s dress is black, short, and almost tight enough to be obscene. She breezes past where Shaw is sitting in the train car, making a beeline for their weapons locker. Shaw isn’t sure where she’s planning on hiding a gun, exactly, but she tries not to dwell on it.

“See something you like, Sameen?”

Shaw scowls, tearing her eyes from the hem of Root’s dress. No human should have legs that long. They’re like fucking giraffe legs. But attractive.  

“Root, you’re going to a jail, not fishing for johns on the street corner.” 

She grabs a small lipstick-shaped taser – one of Root’s own contributions to their stash – and sticks it in the tiny excuse for a purse she brought with her. She closes the weapons locker and turns back to look her in the eye. Shaw looks away. 

“Hey Sameen?” 

“Root.” 

“Remember that time you said I was hot?” It’s haughty and condescending and smug, everything she’s come to associate with Root, and Shaw looks her in the face when she replies as casually as she can manage.

“We were about to die. I thought I’d throw you a bone.”

It’s not a denial, but it’s not an admission, either, so Shaw figures it’s probably a good enough response. 

“Is that why you kissed me, too?”

Root smirks and Shaw very much wants to hit her.

It’s not like she didn’t know that this was coming, it’s just that she really doesn’t know how to deal with it now that this discussion is here.

“We are not talking about this.”

“Why not? Seems like a perfectly good time to me. No Harold, no John, just a couple of girls taking a break from work to chat.”

“We are not talking about it because I was supposed to die and not have to deal with this shit.”

There’s a pause.

“You could do it again, you know. If you wanted to. The kissing part, not the dying part.”

She says it with a smirk, but the honesty underneath burns into Shaw until she has to look away, focus her eyes on anything but Root. 

She’s not an idiot. She knows that Root’s flirting went beyond a control tactic a long time ago, and that the offer is there if she wants to take it. And she’s thought about it, about what it would be like to fuck Root, to let Root fuck her, to fuck each other until they’ve both exorcised their demons and taken what they want from each other with selfish abandon.

It would be explosive. Hot and fiery and destructive.

But Root would end up wanting more than Shaw can give her, and for that reason alone, it’s a terrible idea. 

Root thinks she can handle her, thinks she can handle them, but she’s so, _so_ wrong and Shaw knows that it falls to her to keep Root from sinking into this thing any deeper than she already has. She’ll hurt her like she has everyone else who’s ever loved her, and the idea of Root hurt because of her has become unacceptable. 

She tries not to think about why hurting Root bothers her so much, why the idea sits in her stomach like a rock when, once upon a time, she swore to put a bullet in her, to end her like she had so many others.

She kind of misses the simplicity of just wanting to hurt Root at much as she could.

Now, there’s the part of her that wants to protect Root from her before they both burn to the ground, but there’s also a part of her that wants to say “fuck it” and kiss her again right here. Because yeah, it would be a disaster, but disaster is kind of what they’re good at.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

She doesn’t kiss her, but she smiles a little and, from the kind of startled expression on Root’s face, that’s enough for now.

Root turns away from her and stalks back to the weapons locker, heels clacking on the metal floor of the train car, and her lack of witty retort turns Shaw’s smile to a smirk. She’ll chalk this one up in the win column.

“You know how going undercover works, Sameen. Sometimes you have to utilize all of your assets.” 

She crams one more thing into her purse – really, it’s fucking tiny and she has no idea how anything all fits in there – and looks at Shaw again, a little more composed.

“Will you be here manning the tech?”

Shaw rolls her eyes and huffs. She really had wanted to tail the number’s wife. It wouldn’t even be a particularly dangerous mission, just recon. A few pictures, a little snooping through her stuff, maybe a quick interrogation at gunpoint. It wouldn’t have even been particularly interesting, but it would’ve been better than sitting around here with Finch trying to teach her how to do computer things. He feels bad for her, he knows she’s bored, but he doesn’t quite seem to understand that the computer crap only increases the boredom.

She huffs. “With Finch. Still won’t let me off the leash.”

Root actually looks sympathetic for a minute.

“You’ll be able to get back to work soon. We just need to make sure –“ 

“Yeah, Samaritan, I got it.” 

She’s heard the spiel enough times to not need to hear it again. Need to make sure Samaritan operatives aren’t going to gun you down the second you leave the subway station, Sameen. Need to make sure Samaritan operatives don’t have a bounty on your head, Sameen. Need to make sure no one followed us when we rescued you, Sameen.

The words are innocuous enough, safe, neutral. But every time they come out of Root’s mouth, all Shaw hears are her screams, echoing through the basement of the New York Stock Exchange.

“I just want to keep you safe.” Root is quiet and honest and it makes her chest uncomfortably tight to have someone care so much. 

“I can’t stay here forever, Root.” 

She glances through the train window at the bench where she’d sat the last time they’d had this conversation, before the Stock Exchange, when Root had leered about restraints and everything had been easier. Root follows her gaze.

“I know.”

Root smiles, sadly, and Shaw wonders, not for the first time, when she started to look so _fragile_.

She asked John once, and all he said was, “People change when they lose the thing they care about.” She never bothered to ask if he meant her or the Machine because it didn’t really make a difference either way. 

Now she thinks it might have been her, and it does make a difference. It makes a difference because she never wanted this, never wanted Root to care enough to smile like her heart is breaking, never wanted to chip off pieces of her until she was standing here, naked emotion on her face, too tired to mask her feelings in sly one-liners and quirks of her eyebrow. 

Root is here and open and _hurting_ and no, Shaw didn’t want this at all. 

“I’ll stay as long as I can.”

It’s the best she can do, it really is.

“But I’m not going to sit around doing nothing if you’re about to get your ass kicked. That’s not what I do.”

They are silent for a while, Root staring out at the bench, Shaw trying not to stare at Root. There are things she should say, probably, but she doesn’t know what they are, and she doesn’t know how to take the fear out of Root’s eyes, how to make herself matter less. 

She doesn’t know when this got so hard.

(But she does. It got hard when she jumped on a stolen bike and rode to New Jersey because the thought of Root getting herself killed for them turned her stomach. It got hard when she turned down an offer to go to Barcelona, away from a life of drawing eyebrows on old ladies and spraying perfume at whatever unsuspecting victim just happened to be walking past her. It got hard when she began to care – about Root, about the team, about the mission – in a way she still doesn’t understand.) 

She changes the subject; there’s still work to be done, and work is so much easier than whatever this is. 

“So where are you hiding the cameras?” 

She knows she said the right thing when Root’s frown eases into a smirk and turns to face her. 

Root runs her hands down her dress, smoothing out material that wasn’t at all wrinkled, and Shaw can’t help but follow her movement. If her eyes linger too long on Root’s breasts or those damn long legs, well, she’s only human. 

Root invades her personal space and Shaw can’t even find it in herself to mind all that much because she knows how to handle this Root way better than sad, mopey Root. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

Shaw rolls her eyes because that’s what she does, that’s what they do – flirt and deflect – and she feels a little less like everything has gone to shit in her absence. 

“In the conjugal room or apartment or whatever it is. You know what I meant.” 

Root leans in and whispers in her ear. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.” 

Shaw almost laughs. She catches herself and scowls instead. 

\--- 

The hoots and whistles sound through the comm link and Shaw grits her teeth. 

Root definitely shouldn’t have worn that stupidly hot dress. 

She’s walking through the prison, surrounded by a bunch of dudes who probably haven’t seen a woman in years, and have probably never seen a woman like Root, and Shaw really would like to shoot any one of them that looks at her wrong. Or that looks at her at all, really.

Finch sits at his desk, watching Root on the monitors, as Shaw throws a ball for Bear on the platform. The ball bounces off the far wall, Bear’s paws skittering against the concrete as he chases it. 

“She in, Finch?” 

Last Shaw had checked the monitors, Root had been flirting her way through security, and Shaw figured she didn’t need to watch the two bumbling idiot sheriff’s deputies losing their shit because Root wore a tight dress. 

Finch calls out from the train car. “Ms. Groves is being escorted to Mr. Reese’s cell, and then they will be taken to the family trailer.” 

“How many cameras?” 

She throws one last ball for Bear, sending him down the platform again, and moves to stand behind Finch, a keen eye on the monitors.

“I believe Ms. Groves brought four. They’ll set them up today, and we’ll monitor Mr. Gutierrez’s meeting tomorrow evening. I’ve informed Detective Fusco that he will have business at the prison around that time, so he’ll be there to aid Mr. Reese and to stop this Pinky person from hurting Mr. Gutierrez. Or vice versa.” 

Shaw nods. 

The deputy unlocks Reese’s cage, and he steps out to greet Root with another stupid kiss. His cellmate whoops, and Shaw swears she sees Reese wink at the security camera in the corner of their cell. Jackass.

Unprofessional jackass.

For all of the times she and Reese have gone undercover as some kind of romantically entangled couple, she’s never stooped to kissing him to maintain their cover. It’s entirely unnecessary and he’s doing it just to piss her off. 

“Hello, sweetie.” Root is doing that low, sultry thing with her voice that she tries on Shaw sometimes and really, is that necessary too? Shaw makes a mental note to never send Root undercover again. She’s fucking terrible at it. 

The deputy – middle-aged and bored-looking – cuffs Reese, mutters a gruff “This way” and leads them down the row. 

The conjugal trailer (family trailer, technically, but Shaw’s always been one to call a spade a spade – the trailer isn’t for games of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, it’s for fucking) isn’t all that far from the prison itself. Root, Reese, and the deputy walk across the yard and through a gate before they stop at the door of a small mobile home. Deputy Bored Guy pulls out his keys and unlocks the door, then unlocks Reese’s cuffs.

He gives Root one last look over, grins, and swats her on the ass. “Have a good time, inmate.” 

Root flinches, surprised, and Shaw’s fists curl. 

“You got a way to send that footage to someone who can fire that dickwad, Finch?” she says through gritted teeth. 

“I’m sure that can be arranged.”

Root and Reese disappear into the trailer, and they lose visual.

“Ms. Groves, once you’ve set up the cameras, you’ll need to patch them into the network so we can see you. I’ve sent the remote access code to your phone.” 

“Thanks, Harry. Be with you a minute.” 

Finch turns off the prison feeds and the monitors go black. 

Shaw leans against the wall behind her, feeling the cold metal press into her back. Hopefully this won’t take too long – Root promised her a ginormous steak (probably as part of her efforts to get her to stay put but whatever, Shaw’s not above food-related bribery) and she’s starting to get hungry. 

The first monitor springs to life, a mass of brown curls filling the screen until Root pulls back, her eyes focused right at the camera. “Got me, Harold?” 

“Yes, thank you, Ms. Groves.” 

Root stands up and moves off screen, leaving Shaw and Finch to look over the room. It’s small, the part they can see – a bed, a nightstand, a dresser. It looks more like a hotel room than a prison facility, save for the bars on the windows (which, really, have been present at any number of shit hole motels she’s stayed at over the years).

“Are those fucking condoms?”

There’s a box of Trojans on the nightstand.

“Hi, Sameen.” 

Root is still off screen, but Shaw can practically hear her smirk. 

“Condoms, Root?”

“It’s not like I brought them. The prison supplies them for the inmates.”

“Gee, how thoughtful.”

“STDs aren’t sexy, Sameen.”

Shaw glances over at Finch. The tips of his ears are pink. A little embarrassment serves him right – he was the one who decided Root was the best undercover agent ever.

Another camera clicks into place and Reese comes into view, fiddling with the equipment in a living-room type area. He’s got his earpiece back in – Root brought it along with her other tech stuff.

“Getting kind of scruffy there, Reese.” 

“It’s my new look – prison inmate sheik.” His dry humor brings a smile to Shaw’s face. She missed him, when she was gone. 

Truthfully, she’d missed all of them. Even Fusco, in some weird “I miss you like I miss hemorrhoids” kind of way. She just kind of got used to him, the way she got used to the rest of them, and she couldn’t really get used to the idea of never seeing any of them again, even when it seemed like she was going to be stuck looking at Greer’s ugly face forever. 

“Where do you want your steak from, Shaw?” Root pops up on a third monitor. 

“Get me the porterhouse from Gallaghers.” 

She’s practically drooling already.

“That’s big enough for two people. Are we going to share? Make it a date?”

She looks so hopeful.

“No.”

Her face falls just a little and Shaw thinks that sometimes, this is way too easy. “I’m just really hungry,” she adds, “All Finch gets me is sandwiches and pancakes. And he brought me a salad once.” 

“It had meat on it.” 

“It was a salad, Finch.”    

Root laughs and this time, Shaw doesn’t suppress her smile.

“Okay, Sameen. One more camera, and then I’ll swing by Gallaghers.” 

“If you bring me a six-pack, I might let you have a beer with me.” It doesn’t count as a date if there isn’t food and/or shooting involved. “Steak is still off limits, though.” 

Root walks away, practically bouncing.

“Careful, Shaw, she might think you like her.” 

She rolls her eyes.

“Shut it, Reese.”

At least he’s had the good manners to not bring up the kiss in the elevator. Unlike Fusco, who confronted her with “So what’s up with you and Crazy Eyes?” almost as soon as she got back. Some people need to learn to mind their own business.

“Almost done, Harry. The microphone on this one is giving me a little trouble.” Root is on her tiptoes – fuck-me heels discarded almost as soon as she and Reese had walked in the door – trying to affix a camera over the door. 

She doesn’t get a chance to finish. 

The door slams hard against her and she falls backward. Shaw surges forward, like leaning over Finch’s shoulder is going to let her see more than leaning against the wall of the train car. 

Three guys with guns barrel through the door, clearing the way for a fourth, a tall, tattooed guy who walks like he’s got fucking clouds in his shoes. 

One of the goons trains his gun on Root, two others taking aim at Reese. 

“Yo, Pinky. This bitch ain’t Gutierrez.” 

Root’s hand goes to her head – she must have slammed it against the floor or wall or something when she fell – and she’s disoriented enough not to knock Goon #1 on the ground.

Fuck.

Shaw grabs her shoes and shoves her feet into them while she tears through the gun locker. Heckler & Koch USP Compact, Jericho 941 F 9mm, Glock G21. The new sub-machine gun Reese had picked up last week. 

“Ms. Shaw.” Finch calls to her and she looks back at the monitors. She’s only half listening to Pinky and his guys – her head is full of Root’s screams from the Stock Exchange, sounding over and over. 

Root’s hands are ziptied behind her back, and she’s kneeling on the living room floor, gun pressed against her temple. Reese is next to her, and Shaw can tell he’s trying to figure out if he’d be able to take all four of them, unarmed with his hands behind his back.

He wouldn’t. 

Doesn’t mean he won’t try, but if he does, he’ll get himself killed in the process.

Pinky’s right hand guy – tall, Betty Boop tattoo on his left bicep – has at least three inches on Reese and probably 40 pounds. Former military, if his haircut and gait are anything to go by, and would probably be lethal even without the submachine gun clutched in his hands.

“What do we do with them, boss?”

Pinky’s voice is deep probably what some people would consider intimidating. “Forget them for a second. Which of you fucking idiots got the wrong fucking day? Where the fuck is Gutierrez?” 

She grabs a grenade for good measure and shoves it into her bag. 

Pinky drags one of his guys off screen and two of the others follow, leaving Mr. Betty Boop with Root and Reese.

“You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you, bitch?” He reaches for her cheek and Root twists her head away and for a second, Shaw thinks she’s going to bite his hand. “What kind of fun can we have with you?”

“Finch, call Fusco. Have him meet me there.”

Finch grabs her elbow. “Ms. Shaw, wait.” 

Root’s voice comes through the comm, practically a whisper. “Shaw, don’t. I know you’re listening. Just don’t. Let Finch and Fusco handle it.” 

“Like hell I will,” she mutters and rips her arm away.

“Ms. Shaw, please. Listen to Ms. Groves. I’m sure she and John can fend for themselves until Detective Fusco can –“

“You can’t be serious.” His face tells her he’s just as scared as she is. “Finch, we’d be lucky if he has a toothbrush shiv, and the best weapon she has on her is a fucking lipstick taser. No way.” 

He steps in front of her, blocking her path to the stairs, nervous but defiant, and she’s ready to hit him because it’d be quicker than this damn conversation.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do this. I don’t think the world would survive if Root lost you a second time.”

Stupid fucking Root and her stupid fucking feelings.

“Finch.” She looks him hard in the eye and speaks slowly. “I don’t do a lot of emotions very well, but I’m pretty good at anger. You don’t want me to show you just how good. Move.”

A moment passes before he steps aside. “Be careful, Ms. Shaw.” 

She nods curtly. “Call Fusco.” 

And she’s up the stairs and out the door.

\---

It takes 36 minutes for Shaw to get to the prison. She doesn’t panic, and she doesn’t think about all of the things that could be happening to Root and Reese while she drives. She isn’t a worrier, not like Root is. Instead, she plans. 

She plans all of the things that she’s going to do when she gets there, anticipating their moves and countermoves, a plan for every situation. It reminds her of when she was in tactical, running drills over and over with her lieutenant until she’d thought of every foreseeable possibility. So she thinks about the possibilities as she presses her foot on the pedal.

When she’s done thinking about how she’s going to get Root and Reese out of there unharmed, she thinks about what she’s going to do to Pinky and his friends. It doesn’t involve kneecaps. 

When she pulls up to the prison parking lot, Finch is in her ear. “There’s a hole in the fence 600 meters due east from you. You’ll need to go through that – alerting the prison would put them in more danger. I think this group has a deputy on their payroll.”

She’s out of the car and running east, machine gun strapped to her chest and her bag on her back. 

“Anything going on in there, Finch?” she huffs as she runs. She’ll need to know their positions before she gets there. 

“Ms. Groves is in the living room with the gentleman with the Betty Boop tattoo, and Mr. Reese is being questioned by Pinky in the bedroom.”

Good. Not dead.

“Questioned?” 

“Yes. One of them found the camera Ms. Groves was trying to install above the door when they came in.”

“Shit.”

She slows down and pulls out her flashlight, scanning the fence for the hole. The trailer is maybe 1000 feet ahead, and she can see the light shining out of the small barred window on the side. She keeps her flashlight low – the last thing she needs is for one of the goons to see her now. 

“Fusco?”

The light catches on a patch of grass where they should be chain link, and she stops, dropping her bag in front of her and shoving it to the other side. The fence has been slashed and some dirt has been dug up. It’s probably where Pinky and his crew came through, and if they can fit, she definitely can.

“Still approximately five minutes away. I really think it would be best to wait for him, Ms. Shaw.”

She drops to her stomach, tucks her head, and crawls. 

“They may not have five minutes, Finch, and I’m not willing to take that risk. Are you?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. 

Dirt falls from her pants as she stands up and gathers her things. 

She shoulders her weapon and stands in front of the door. 

“It’s show time.”

\---

Whatever reaction she was expecting, it wasn’t this. 

She’s still soaring high on adrenaline and gunpowder, but Root’s angry silent treatment is really threatening to kill her buzz. 

If this were any other time, she’d be at a bar, three shots into pleasantly tipsy, and maybe indulging in a celebratory fuck with someone suitably attractive. Instead, she’s poised in front of the door of the hotel room where Root has been staying since Shaw got back.

It wasn’t her idea, exactly, but John is only slightly more subtle than Root and when he passed her the receipt from their Chinese food with an address on the back, she got the hint. She didn’t even plan on doing anything about it, not really, because why should she care if Root is pissed at her? It’s not like she did anything Root wouldn’t have done if their positions had been switched. And everything worked out just fine – the number is safe, Root is safe, and the only bullets that hit their marks were the ones from her own gun.

She tries not to think about how close they had come, how close _Root_ had come to taking a bullet to the brain. She sees it when she closes her eyes, Root kneeling in front of Pinky, his finger on the trigger, and maybe that’s part of why she’s here, too, because Root is alive and that is important in ways that make her stomach clench. 

Root is alive and she is alive and Pinky is dead (she shot him more times than maybe she needed to, and she’ll get a lecture from Finch later about deadly force, but whatever, she doesn’t care). All in all, a successful mission. 

But Root had stormed away as soon as the scene was secure, shoulder-checking Shaw on her way out the door. 

This is why this whole thing with Root would be a dumb fucking idea. Because Root is pissed that Shaw can’t give her what she needs, and Shaw doesn’t really care all that much. There are more important things than Root’s feelings – like her damn life – and if that’s gonna piss her off, then fine. Let her be mad. 

It’s all so damn messy. _Root_ is messy. 

She looks down at the room number scribbled on the receipt and up at the identical number on the wall. 

She didn’t plan to come here. She really didn’t.

She just kind of ended up here.

Whatever.

She swipes the keycard she swiped from the front desk and reprogrammed with one of Finch’s gadgets. 

The door slams behind her. 

“You still owe me a steak.” 

Root doesn’t look up from her computer. She’s sitting on the bed, legs tucked under her, focused on the screen, and it takes Shaw about two seconds to realize she’s wearing a shirt but no pants.

Great.

The dress she was wearing earlier is crumpled on a chair and Shaw isn’t sure which would be more distracting – Root in that damn dress or shirt-and-underwear-only Root.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Her voice bites and yeah, she sounds angry enough. “Samaritan –“ 

Shaw rolls her eyes. 

“Samaritan can suck my dick. This place is on the shadow map, no one will find me here, so let’s just get this over with.” 

Root’s forehead creases and for a second Shaw almost thinks it’s endearing and Jesus Christ she is so fucked.

“Get what over with?”

Root slams the laptop closed and pushes it aside, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She should really put on some damn pants.

“The part where you tell me you’re pissed at me for saving your ass and the part where I tell you to shove it.”

Root looks up sharply, and Shaw can’t tell if she is annoyed or exhausted. 

“Look, the sooner we get the shitty part over with, the sooner things can go back to normal and I can get my steak.” 

Root half-laughs, half-scoffs. 

“Normal? I don’t even know what that is anymore.”

They are dangerously close to feelings territory, and Shaw would maneuver them away from it immediately if Root didn’t look so damn vacant. Her voice is flat, she’s almost folded in on herself, and Shaw doesn’t think she’s ever seen Root look so small.

Shaw shrugs.

“We fight bad guys, you say something annoying, I pretend not to notice. Lather, rinse, repeat.” 

Root shakes her head and pushes herself off the bed. She walks to the window and runs a hand down the glass, like she’s looking for something just outside.

“Normal died, Shaw. It died when we lost you and put the Machine in a box. There is no normal now. Not for me. Not for us.” 

She pauses for a second.

“Us? There is no ‘us,’ Root.” 

She keeps her voice as cold as she can and doesn’t react when Root turns to face her. 

It’s not true, not really – there’s been a “them” since the Stock Exchange, probably even before then – but she needs something to make Root angry.

Root looks at her sharply, nostril flaring. Good. This is what she’s comfortable with, pushing and pulling at each other until someone breaks. Anger means an adrenaline rush, blood pumping through her like it does in the middle of a good fight or great sex. Anger means the sadness leaves Root’s eyes and she looks alive in a way Shaw hasn’t seen since she got back. Anger is sadness set on fire, and Shaw has always loved watching things burn.  

“Fuck you.” 

Shaw can’t stop her smirk.

“You want me mad? Fine.” 

Root starts walking toward her, purposeful steps making her look almost predatory. Shaw doesn’t back away, but she doesn’t step closer either.

“It was five minutes, Sameen. Five minutes between when you got there and when Fusco did. You could have gotten yourself killed – you still could, they could be out there right now just waiting for you to come out – for five fucking minutes.” 

Shaw huffs. 

“You were tied up with a bunch of angry gang bangers. What was I supposed to do? Twiddle my thumbs, maybe do a crossword puzzle or some knitting and let everybody else handle it?”

Root doesn’t miss a beat. 

“Yes.” 

“And why the hell would I do that?”

The images come to her, unbidden. Root screaming in the elevator months ago, Root with a gun to her head tonight, Root’s body broken and lifeless in so many pictures Martine brought to her, one angle after another, all dead dead dead.

“Because I asked you to!”

It’s the first time Root has raised her voice all night. They aren’t far away from each other now, and her heart hammers in her chest.

“I told you, Root, that I wouldn’t stay there forever.” 

Root shakes her head. 

“You act like your life doesn’t mean anything, and maybe it doesn’t to you, but it does to me.” 

Shaw takes a single step towards her, the first move she’s made since she entered the room and demanded steak.

“What the fuck is this really about, Root?”

Root’s anger fades as quickly as it came.

“You shouldn’t have been there. That day.” She doesn’t need to ask what day she’s talking about. A kiss, a shove, bullets, and a scream that Shaw has tried so hard to forget. Root looks like she’s relived those moments a thousand times. She probably has.

“And then what would’ve happened? You all would’ve died and it would be just me and Bear trying to save the world from the AI-pocalypse. The world would be screwed.”

Root takes another step, and they’re in each other’s space, air mingling between them. Shaw isn’t sure if she’s drowning or coming up for air. 

“Then you should’ve let me push the button. I was the one who was supposed to –“

“Cut the martyr crap, Root. I was never gonna let that happen.” 

In this moment, she desperately needs Root to know this about her, to know that she doesn’t sit down when her people are in danger. She needs her to deal with it, accept it, whatever.

Shaw doesn’t care about people in the way normal people do – it isn’t fuzzy and loving and happy. Her caring comes with a body count, violent, angry, protective. 

It ( _she_ ) has never been enough for anyone before. 

“Why?” 

But maybe Root is different.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” 

Kissing Root is like landing a really good punch. It knocks the other guy off guard, and sends adrenaline coursing through your veins, so much that you want to do it over and over and never stop. 

Root is still for a second, hands stiff at her sides, and Shaw has to work to push the screams from the elevator out of her mind. This is not like before. This is not an end. 

(Except it is, and Shaw knows it, but for tonight maybe she will try to pretend that this could last, that she even wants it to.)

Root’s hands react first, grabbing Shaw by the straps of her tank top and pulling her in closer until Shaw can feel the heat from her skin. And then Root’s mouth is moving against hers and they are all lips and teeth and tongues and yeah, this is so much better than the last time. 

It’s better because death isn’t imminent, because Reese and Finch and Fusco aren’t here, because Root is kissing her back and she’s every bit as good of a kisser as Shaw thought she might be. Not that she thought about it a lot. Just enough to form an opinion. 

This is a horrible idea, but she has Root’s bottom lip between her teeth and she can’t really bring herself to care.

Root tugs at the hair at the base of her skull, hard enough to rip Shaw’s mouth away from her own, and the reaction in Shaw’s body is hot and immediate. 

“Bed.” It’s practically an order, but Root doesn’t seem to mind, tossing her that stupid smug grin, like she’s gotten one over on her as she steps backward toward the bed. 

Fine. Two can play at that game.

Shaw reaches out and shoves Root backward, smiling when she lands on the mattress with a soft “oof.” She follows her and stands at the edge of the bed, pulling her own shirt off over her head and then reaching for her pants. Root’s hand lands on hers, black fingernails scraping against the back of her hand as she pushes Shaw away. Root looks up at her from where she sits on the bed, bare legs still hanging over the edge, and her eyes – wide and dilated – search for her own.

Shaw can only meet them for a second before she has to look away. 

Root pops the button on Shaw pants and drags them down to Shaw’s knees, and it’s so much slower than Shaw is comfortable with. She kicks her pants off the rest of the way and pushes Root back onto the bed, until she’s lying on her back, Shaw straddling her hips, hovering over her. 

She kisses her again as she works a hand under Root’s shirt, pushing the material up until her breasts are exposed and goosebumps scatter across her skin. Root’s hips roll when Shaw pinches a nipple between her fingers, and Shaw smirks into their kiss at her lack of self-control. 

She thinks about drawing things out, teasing Root until she begs or takes control for herself, but that’s not what this is about. It’s not slow or playful or teasing. This is “I’m glad you’re not dead” fucking (because they had both been so close so many times in the last months, and she can’t get the image of Root the way she found her today, ziptied and staring down the barrel of Pinky’s gun, out of her head), which needs to be hard and fast and satisfying. 

Maybe there will be other kinds of fucking later, maybe there won’t. But for now, she thinks that if she can replace the images with Root writhing underneath her, if she can replace the screams she’s been hearing in her head since the Stock Exchange with the soft moans that break through their kisses when Shaw pushes her thigh against Root’s center, this might be enough. 

“Underwear,” she grunts, and Root lifts her hips so Shaw can pull them down her legs. 

When Shaw reaches for her, Root stops her, letting her eyes look Shaw up and down. “I’m not the only one that needs to be naked for this.”

Shaw rolls her eyes and reaches back to unhook her bra. Root practically yanks it off of her body, and her enthusiasm would be amusing if her eyes weren’t so dark and her touch wasn’t so desperate. They both need this, she thinks, this confirmation that they are alive and here, even if only for now. She leans down to kiss her neck, letting her teeth scrape against Root’s pulse point.

Alive alive alive. 

She can’t give Root much, but she can give her this.

So when Root’s hand finds her, she doesn’t push it away, even though this isn’t how it is supposed to go, even though she wanted to make Root come undone before she even considered herself. She lets Root touch her, hisses as black fingernails bite delicate skin before fingers enter her. 

She meets Root’s thrusts with her hips, needing to both gain control and lose it at the same time. 

When she comes, it’s hard and fast and she closes her eyes because Root is looking at her and it’s too much. 

She rolls over, off of Root, and breathes. 

Her recovery doesn’t take long, and she moves back to Root, doing her best to pull everything she can out of her with her fingers and teeth and tongue. 

A flick of her tongue is a shudder. A scrape of her teeth is a hiss. A hard thrust of her fingers is a whimper. 

Shaw takes and takes and takes because one day, this will all be over and all she’ll have will be these things that she’s taken, pieces of Root and pieces of her and memories of this.

Root shakes beneath her, falling apart, and Shaw smiles. 

After, they lie on the bed, side by side but not touching. 

Shaw doesn’t know if she feels empty or full. 

“I’m going to go grab us some food.” Root gets off the bed and starts putting on clothes. 

Hungry. Shaw feels hungry. 

“Steak?” 

If it sounds overeager, it’s probably because her body is still swimming with endorphins and shit. 

Root looks at her and rolls her eyes a little. 

“Sure, Sameen.”

The fondness on Root’s face is apparent, and it twists her insides a little. 

“This is not going to end well, you and me.” 

She doesn’t say it to hurt Root, and she doesn’t really mean to say it at all, but she needs Root to know, to go into this whole thing with her eyes open and knowing what Shaw is capable of. 

Root finishes buttoning her pants. 

“I know.” 

Shaw wonders if she does, if she really knows how much damage they are going to do to each other. 

“I mean it, Root. I’m going to destroy you.” 

Root smiles like her heart is already breaking and Shaw wishes she could stop it, she does, but it’s practically inevitable. 

“And I’m going to let you.” 

Root closes the door gently on her way out.

\---

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short, fun, kinda funny exercise in writing Shaw and then it grew into 9000 words of feelings. Shit happens. 
> 
> My normal beta (aka Wife) was busy with work this week, so mistakes are mine alone. 
> 
> Title from Sara Bareillis' "Gravity."


End file.
